[CHAPTER XX.]
No matter though their conquerors lay around the city--for conquerors in one form the French and their auxiliaries were--and no matter whether their grasp would tighten more and more upon the beleaguered place, or be suddenly relieved and loosed by the English and their allies as they advanced near to Liége, the inhabitants did not cease to continue as far as might be their ordinary pursuits, and also their relaxations.
It is true, the business that they did was much curtailed: their silks and satins, spices, and other tropical wares could now no longer reach Liége either by water or land, or, having reached it, could not in many cases enter. Also, it was true, the burghers could neither feast nor drink as copiously as had once been their wont, since food was required for the investors inside and outside the city, who took care to be first served.
But some things there were that neither investment nor a reduction in rations, nor, which was the same thing, a tremendous increase in the price of all rations, could prevent them from enjoying. Such things, to wit, as their walks and promenades along the quays on either side of the river or in the public gardens and places of the city.
For which reason fathers and mothers still took their daughters out of evenings and gave them an airing, and treated them to the coffee drinking beloved of Dutch wives and maidens, while the men smoked solemnly their pipes, since the city was well provisioned with such things as coffee and tobacco, no matter how short it might fall of fresh bread and meat and fish and vegetables.
And, because the heart can ever remain light so long as the most terrible calamities have not yet befallen that can well befall, and can especially do so when the heart is young, the daughters and sons of the honest Liègois would laugh and talk and sip their coffee under the flowering acacias, while, through the eyelits of their masks, the former would cast many a glance of curiosity at those whom they were taught to hate and loathe.
For now that the city, as well as the country that lay around it, was filled with French soldiery, there would sometimes pass before their eyes handsomely accoutred mousquetaires and dragoons, or sometimes a fierce and swarthy Cravate, and sometimes a young cadet of the regiment of Royal-Condé or of the superbly decorated Garde de la Reine. And from the eyes that sparkled behind the half-masks would be shot glances that told of one of two things--or it may be of both!--namely, of hatred for the invader or of that admiration which scarlet or blue, or gold and silver lace, scarcely ever fail to extort.
Beneath the leafy branches of some acacia and ialanthus trees there sat this evening a group of four people watching all the promenaders, native and foreign, who passed before them. One, the chief of the group, was an elderly man who seemed more immersed in intricate thought than concerned in what met his eyes. By his side was a lady, herself no longer young, and, consequently, unmasked; a woman with a sweet, sad face, who might have given to any onlooker the idea that her thoughts were little enough occupied with the affairs of this world--an idea that would, perhaps, have been increased in the minds of those who should regard her by the appearance of delicate health which her face wore.
Next to her were two ladies, each masked and young, though one, if the lower and uncovered portion of the face was sufficient to judge by, was much younger than her companion. For surely the dark, chestnut hair of this latter, as it curled beneath the broad-brimmed, black-feathered hat she wore, while undisfigured by any wig or powder, belonged only to a woman in her first blush of early womanhood. So, too, must have done the tall, slight form clad outwardly in a long, dark-coloured satin cloak, and the slim hands from which the white gauntlets had been withdrawn. Also, the eyes that looked calmly through the eyelets of the mask, the sweet yet grave-set mouth beneath, and the white, smooth chin, would have told that here sat one who was young yet sedate, beautiful but grave.
As for the lady next to her, she too was grave and solemn, and, for the rest, clad much the same as her companion.